We
stayed at the hotel Marconi for 3 nights during our trip to Milan in June
2003.

We took the Malpensa Express from the
airport Malpensa to the Stazione Centrale (the main railway station).
Based on our guidebook the hotel was supposed to be located not far from
the hotel. It is of course not always easy to navigate when you come to a
new city so we did end up walking more than we needed to. The hotel is
located on Via F. Filzi number 3 and the easiest way to get there is by
walking down the main road from the central station towards Piazza della
repubblica. The road Via F. Filzi is the road located parallel on the
right hand side and it takes about 10 minutes to walk to the hotel.

The location of the hotel is OK. The main
thing for us was that it was located near Repubblica Metro station and
from there it was a short ride to the city center. It took us about 5
minutes to walk to the metro station and for 1 Ä you get a ticket to ride
the metro for 75 minutes if Iím not mistaken.

There are a few restaurants in this area and
there was also a couple of markets right across the street. There are some
construction work going on outside front of the building.

We made our reservation through
http://www.italyhotelclub.com/ and when we got there everything was in
order. We paid 75 Ä for the first 2 nights and 99 Ä for the last night and
this was including the breakfast. The lobby included the front desk, a few
chairs and a TV and there was also a bar that was open during the weekend.
The hotel has about 70 rooms.

The
room had tiles on the floor and I have read that this is quite common in
Italy and I guess it makes sense because it is easier to clean. We had a
king size bed that was nice and soft (to my likings :-), a couple of
chairs, a desk, a TV with quite a lot of Italian speaking channels and
just a couple of English speaking channels (CNN and EuroSport), a wardrobe
with about 5 hangers, a small minibar with some water, soda and alcohol. A
door with windows provided the light and also gave us access to an open
area in the middle of the building. The open space was not very pretty at
the moment because there was some construction work going on.

The bathroom was also tiled and it had a
toilet of course together with a bidť, a shower (with a shower curtain)
and a sink. We also found a couple of shampoo bottles, some small bars of
soap, and a hairdryer mounted on the wall. The shower was a bit small but
the shower curtain did prevent flooding when we took a shower.

It was pretty quiet in the room and we
didnít hear anything from the traffic in the street in front of the hotel.
But there is a church right next to the hotel and the bells keep ringing
every half hour :-)

Breakfast
was included in the room rate and it was served from 7 to 10 am. There was
a selection of cereal, yogurt, buns, jam, honey, nutella, juice (which was
not very good by the way :-), fresh fruits and lots of sweet pastry stuff.
We got tea or coffee together with the breakfast. It was not the most
exciting breakfast but it is always good to get something to eat before
you start walking around town.

Conclusion
The Marconi is an OK and there is not mush more to say about the hotel. We
didnít spend much time in the room because we were out exploring the city
all day long. The main thing for us was that the room was clean and that
it was close to the metro so that we could get around.

Hotel Continental in VeniceWe stayed at the Hotel Continental
for 4 nights during our trip to Venice in June 2003. Hotel Continental is
a 3 star hotel located near the train station in Venice. We stayed at room
114.

We
arrived by train in Venice and when we got out of the train station I
found Venice just the way that I Had imagined it to be: sunny, Canal
Grande, lots of boats and lots of tourist. Fortunately the hotel is not
very far from the train station so after a 5 minute walk we were there.
The hotel didnít look very impressive on the outside. It looked grayish
and some of the building was covered due to construction work. But the
hotel is located by the shore of Canal Grande and it is close to the
vaporetto stop (vaporetto is the boat ďbusĒ that goes up and down Canal
Grande) and close to Scalzi bridge (bridge crossing Canal Grande from
Cannaregio to Santa Croce/San Polo)

In the hotel area you will find lots of
shops, restaurants, internet cafes, a laundry place, ice cream shops,
markets, mask shop and so on.

According to the guide book you have to book
a hotel pretty early when going to Italy. We didnít plan it very well so
we didnít book a hotel until 1 week before we left for Italy. When booking
this late you either get something that is really bad or something that is
a bit expensive. I guess you can say that we got a hotel room that was
pretty expensive because we paid 150 Ä per night including breakfast. We
booked the hotel room using
http://www.holidaycity.com

The lobby at the hotel was small but with
air condition so it was really nice to get inside. We had 35 degrees
Celsius on some days and I guess that explains why I appreciated the
air-con J The people working at the front desk where polite and spoke
several languages (Italian, English, Spanish). In the lobby we also found
different newspapers (USA Today). The hotel has 107 rooms by the way.

When we got to the hotel the porter carried
our luggage to our room and we were excited when he headed for the room
located on the canal side. And we did get a room with a view to Canal
Grande at it was very nice. We had two large windows facing the canal and
1 window in the bathroom which didnít have much of a view.

The
room was not tiny as I had expected it to be. Instead we got a room that
was above average in size. The room had a carpet, a king size bed (which
was a bit too hard for me), a sofa, two chairs and a small table, a
wardrobe with a few hangers, a small color TV (with quite a few German,
Italian and English channelsÖbut with a remote that wasnít really working
that well) and a small safe. With the air condition in the room we could
control the temperature. The only thing that would have been nice to have
was a small minibar.

The bathroom we got had tiles and included
toilet, bide and a bathtub. The only problem with the bathtub was that
there was no shower curtain and we ended up splashing water all over the
floor when taking a shower. Apart from this there was a hair dryer mounted
on the wall and little bars of soaps and shampoo in small bags.

Breakfast
was included and we enjoyed this every day. When it comes to warm stuff
the hotel offered scrambled eggs, boiled eggs and bacon. And they had a
toast machine and a selection of both white and dark bread. And with toast
you get a selection of jam, honey, cheese and ham of course. They also had
quite a selection of sweet stuff. Apart from this there was a couple of
choices when it comes to cereal and they also had canned fruit mix which I
enjoyed. They had a few choices of juice but it wasnít great. And we got
tea or coffee served at the table.

When we were there they were doing some sort
of construction work on the outside of the hotel and it got pretty noisy
in the breakfast room area.

Conclusion
We were pretty thrilled to get a room with a view to the Canal Grande
thatís for sure. The room was larger than expected, the location was
pretty good (after all it is a small town and you can more or less walk
everywhere) but it was a bit expensive. But Venice is so popular that the
hotels are expensive here.